Ryou trudged home in his old snow-boots, his toes numb, his gloved hands shoved deep into his pockets, his scarf wrapped tightly around his neck and lower face as he tried to keep his skin from being any further damaged by the stinging wind.
It never snowed like this in London, he thought to himself bitterly, kicking at the snow as he sighed in annoyance, his breath puffing out in warm, wet clouds of steam that dissipated quickly. Apparently, the midwest was known for long, harsh winters. This winter was shaping up to be even worse than last winter, and Ryou had thought that last winter was unbearable.
Ryou hated winter: the wet, the cold, the wind. It dried his hands until they chapped and whipped his cheeks until they stung. He always slipped on the icy sidewalks, and last year he'd slipped so badly that he sprained his ankle; at least school had been let out by the time that happened, so he was able to rest it properly and recover at home without missing school, or worse, continuing to walk on his bad ankle and making the injury worse because he was too thrifty to go to the doctor. Winter was best spent indoors with fuzzy blankets and warm fires and hot cocoa, in Ryou's opinion.
The only good thing about winter was Christmas, but even Christmas had been spoiled for him. When his mother and sister had died, Christmas had been a bit sadder, as bitter as it was sweet. Then his father had disappeared and, it had become the worst day of the year for Ryou. He supported the holiday in general, it just so happened to be the case that Christmas was one of the saddest days of the year for him personally.
Several days of the year were utterly miserable for him, actually: Christmas, New Year's Eve, his mom's birthday, Amane's birthday, his dad's birthday, his own birthday, Valentine's Day, and, of course, the day his mother and Amane had died. He'd hoped that Valentine's Day would be better this time around, but now, he wasn't so sure…
If it weren't for the fact that it was 12' Fahrenheit outside, Ryou would be crying. He knew from his experience last winter, though, that crying in weather this cold would make tears freeze to his face, and frozen tears burned more than you might think. He and Joey'd had a fight that day, one that had made Ryou unravel completely and give up hope.
He turned off the main sidewalk to walk down the path through the snow that he'd trodden between the sidewalk and his front door. The front of his house was laden with icicles that Ryou didn't care enough to remove. He fumbled a little with his house key before he finally slipped it inside the lock and shoved open the front door. He pushed the door shut behind him and dropped his backpack on the floor, leaning back against the front door as a choked sob escaped his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again as he realized that it was no warmer in here than it was outside. That wasn't right. He straightened up and walked over to the thermostat to check the temperature. The digital display was blank, though, making Ryou's forehead wrinkle with concern. He tried to turn on the lights, but flipping the switch had no effect whatsoever. No, this couldn't be happening, not now, not today, not in this weather…
He grabbed a flashlight and went down to his frigid, unfinished basement to check the fusebox and see if the circuit breaker had tripped. No, that wasn't the problem. He looked at the electric furnace and saw that the system was still and silent. Had the electric company turned his power off, or had it been knocked out by the weather? He'd only paid the heating bill one day late. He'd mailed them the check last week, and since everything had been fine since then, he'd assumed that he had nothing to worry about, that they'd gotten his check and that he was good for the next month. He hadn't been able to pay the bill any sooner because between trying to maintain the minimum balance in his bank account and getting his hours cut at work, he simply hadn't had enough to pay it on time. He'd just had to wait a day, or maybe two, so that he could deposit his next paycheck have enough to write the check for the power company.
He worked at the one Chinese restaurant in town, and it was super sketchy. The food was questionable at best, bad enough that Ryou himself wouldn't eat it, but every other place he'd applied to had never called him back. He knew why nobody else would hire him. It was so painfully obvious. Joey had visited him at work once during his break, and maybe their embrace had been enough to repulse his manager and make him punish Ryou for his orientation by cutting his hours. At least he hadn't cut his pay. His boss didn't have kids at the high school to tell him about Ryou, which was probably why he'd been hired in the first place.
Ryou crossed his arms as he shivered in the darkness, trying to decide what he should do now. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't call Joey. Not after what had happened today. He couldn't call Marik, even though he was the only other true friend Ryou had. No matter how many times Marik offered to help Ryou should he ever need it, Ryou couldn't bring himself to burden the Ishtars with his presence. He was trouble. He was dead-weight. He was a problem, an outcast, a social pariah. They suffered enough for being Muslim without adding the stigma of lending aid to the only open homosexual in town.
Despairing that there was anything else he could do, Ryou plodded up the rough wooden stairs, still wearing his snow-boots, and went to his father's bedroom to gather the comforter up in his arms and take it to his room. He cast it over his bed, straightening out over his own comforter and blankets. He got a large fuzzy blanket from the hall closet and dropped it on his bed as well. He started to take his outerwear off, kicking off his boots, tugging off his hat and gloves, unwrapping his scarf, and shedding his coat. He shivered violently as he started pulling on extra pairs of socks, a thick wool sweater, an oversized hoodie, and a fresh pair of dry gloves. He wrapped himself up in the soft beige fuzz of the blanket that would have been on his father's bed had he been home, then grabbed a shoebox from under his bed and took it with him as he buried himself under the mound of blankets on his bed. He'd hidden at the library after school and gotten his homework done there, so he had no schoolwork to do now, which was for the best, because he couldn't hold in his grief any longer.
Ryou pulled the hood up around his head as he began to shiver just a little less, began to feel just a bit warmer than he'd been when he was outside. He sniffled as tears started to fall from his eyes, reaching for his flashlight and opening the shoebox as he cried.
This was the shoebox that held every suicide note he'd ever drafted, a stack of tissues, his pocket-knife, and a box of large band-aids. Beneath the suicide notes were a few extra sheets of folded paper and a pair of pens, for drafting more. He couldn't write anything right now, though. He was empty of words, just full of pain. He fumbled for a moment with his gloved fingers, tugging a few tissues out of their stack and pressing them to his eyes as more tears flowed. The weight of his many covers blocked out what little daylight was filtering into his room, so the only light he had was from his flashlight, which he set down on the sheets by his head.
The tented fabric around him was suffocating, blocking out fresh air, but Ryou didn't care. He just wanted to stop feeling cold, wanted to stop feeling sad, wanted to stop feeling pain. He wiggled his toes inside his thick socks as he pulled his legs up closer, curling into an even tighter ball of misery. Even as he cried, he reached out and seized his oldest suicide note by the corner of the page. He unfolded it with shaking hands, skimming it with tearful eyes and effectively making him cry harder than before.
That was the boost he'd needed to reach for his knife and push up his sleeve so that he could drag the edge of the blade across his skin in a few short, shallow cuts. He whimpered as he did so, the dark lines showing in dim crimson stripes on his pale, goosebumped flesh. Five little lines was enough for now, and he quickly slapped a wide band-aid over his wrist before the blood stained any of his blankets. He wiped the blade on one of his tissues and shoved the knife and bandaids back into the shoebox. After that, he was content to weep out his pain.
Joey dwelled in the forefront of his mind as he cried, and he couldn't help but remember their fight. It wasn't so much what they'd said as what they hadn't said that made him hurt so much. Then Ryou had slipped away before Joey could even properly explain himself and continued avoiding Joey for the rest of the day. Maybe that wasn't fair of him, but he couldn't let himself think that, not after what he'd seen.
Mai Kujaki was the biggest slut in the whole school, arguably the biggest slut in town. Somehow, her parents still deluded themselves into believing that she was a paragon of virtue, their sweet little angel who could do no wrong. It was so far from the truth it revolted Ryou to no end. Mai wasn't innocent. Her nickname in locker-room gossip and men's room walls was "Mai Valentine," which, to Ryou, sounded like some kind of stripper name. She was promiscuous and vicious and manipulative, and while she couldn't pin down a long-term boyfriend for herself, every guy around still fell for her at some point or other. Well, every guy except Ryou. Even Marik had blushed at her flirtatious ways, but she'd never directed her wiles at him, so he was safe from her influence.
He still remembered the day he'd met her. He'd been attending this high school for less than a week when she decided to take a crack at the new guy. Now that he knew more about her, he knew that she probably would have made a fool of him if he'd given her the chance. As it was, she'd been the one to reveal to everyone that Ryou was gay. She'd tried flirting with him, which made him profoundly uncomfortable until he reached the point where he'd told her that he was so that she would stop. If only he'd known how much of a mistake that had been.
Mai's latest prey had been Joey, Ryou's own Joey, the only one alive who loved him. (Ryou had concluded long ago that either his father wasn't alive or his father didn't love him, and those could be the only possible explanations for his prolonged absence.) It had happened that morning, at the beginning of fourth period, as Ryou was rushing to get to class after a painful altercation with a pair of brainless jocks—honestly, was there really any other kind?—who thought it was funny to shove him down some stairs, tear up his homework, then stuff him in a locker and leave him to struggle his own way out. When he'd finally worked his way free, he'd grabbed his bag and rushed to his next class, only to interrupt Joey and Mai making out in the stairwell. Joey and Ryou had exchanged a brief glance for less than a second before Ryou had continued to dash away, wanting to put both of them behind him for good. Joey'd cornered him in the restroom during lunch and tried to talk to him about it, but Ryou had shut him down.
"We need to talk," Joey had said in a low voice as they stood at the urinals together, the bathroom empty except for themselves.
"What is there to say?" Ryou muttered bitterly without even looking at Joey. Ryou felt betrayed, heart-broken, and angry. He hadn't felt this angry since his father disappeared.
"It wasn't what it looked like." Joey sounded pained, and Ryou could only think that he deserved it.
"That's just what you'd like me to believe, right?" Ryou closed his pants and went to the sink to wash his hands.
"Don't you trust me?" Joey hissed, the Brit still refusing to look at him.
"I trust you as much as I trust my dad." The words had been cold and harsh, and before Joey could contradict him, someone else had entered the bathroom, allowing Ryou to escape Joey's overpowering presence.
Whether he liked it or not, Joey affected him. He loved Joey, and he couldn't help it. Right now, loving Joey caused him all of the pain he'd feared. Ryou wrapped his arms around his head as he started to sob harder, remembering the first time that Joey had kissed him, when the blond had come by Ryou's house one June afternoon and asked to buy him ice cream. They'd been friends for a while, but this was something new. Ryou had hesitantly agreed and Joey had driven them to the grocery store and told him to pick out his favorite flavor. While Ryou got Cherry Garcia, Joey got Smores, then they'd driven out to a field and sat on a fence as they ate their pints of ice cream together.
"I've never had that kind before," Joey'd said suddenly, sounding less smooth than he usually did. "Can I try some?"
"Sure." Ryou'd started to hand over his pint when Joey's lips landed on his. Ryou had been so surprised that he almost lost his balance, but Joey's hand had gone to his lower back, steadying him as they kissed and Ryou finally closed his eyes. When Joey pulled away, Ryou's cheeks were flushed and he felt pleased, embarrassed, and a little bit afraid.
"Why did you…?" he'd asked breathily, unable to finish the question.
"Because I think I love you." Joey's face was just as red as Ryou's at that moment, and for a few moments, neither of them knew what to say.
"I think I love you too," Ryou admitted, still afraid that all of this would somehow fall apart and he'd wake up to find that this was all a beautiful, sunny dream. "But you know that was an incredibly cheesy line, right?" Joey had grinned back at him sheepishly and kissed him again, Ryou's heart feeling light and fluttery and warm like never before.
Ryou didn't feel that way now, though. Joey had cheated on him with a tramp. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn't believe it. But he had seen it, and he believed it. He believed that Joey had enjoyed it, too, which hurt even more. He knew that Joey was different from him. He knew that while he was homosexual, Joey was bisexual, and he'd been okay with it before. He'd been okay with it because he knew that if Joey truly preferred women to him, he would have just gotten himself a girlfriend to fool around with and left Ryou alone. What did he have to gain from risking his reputation, his friends, and the respect of his peers by dating the most hated person in town?
Ryou was shaking from the cold and his tears as he kept himself buried in the relatively warm darkness, feeling exhausted from the day. He always felt tired these days. Winter depressed him, but he felt more depressed today than he had all year. It wasn't even six in the evening, but he was ready to just sleep until morning. When he'd ceased crying, he turned his flashlight off, not wanting to burn out the batteries, and tugged on a bulge of blanket to pull it under his head. He closed his eyes, not wanting to think anymore, just wanting to sleep, because sleep meant forgetting, and forgetting meant peace of mind.
A faded blue '85 chevy caprice sat in Ryou's driveway, the engine chugging away for a solid ten minutes while Joey stood on Ryou's doorstep and pleaded for entrance.
"Come on, Ryou, open up," Joey called as he pounded on the front door of the Brit's house. He sighed as he glanced over at the peeling paint on the front of his boyfriend's house. Joey had painted the front of the house after some delinquents had vandalized his house with spray-paint on Halloween. Ryou hadn't wanted him to do it, but he had, because he cared. He cared that every time Ryou came home from school, he would see those harsh words and be disheartened. He didn't want anything to make Ryou unhappy, so he'd painted over the graffiti one Sunday morning while Ryou was still asleep.
That was why it tore him to pieces that he was the one hurting Ryou right now. He bashed his fist on the door again as he let his forehead rest against the door too, crying to hold himself together.
"Ryou, can we please talk about this?" he shouted, at this point not caring if anyone saw him or if anyone heard him. Ryou had told Joey that he should stay in the closet until they could just leave town together. He didn't want Joey to suffer like Ryou was, but Joey didn't want Ryou to suffer alone. Joey couldn't care less what other people thought of him, but Ryou was so sensitive that it never ceased to affect him. Joey didn't want to hide anymore. He didn't want to let people tell him how he should live his life. And he most certainly didn't want Ryou to continue being persecuted alone as he had been for the past two years.
That was it. He wasn't going to let Ryou misunderstand what had happened between him and Mai. He wasn't going to let a common whore separate them. He checked the doorknob and found that the door was unlocked. He pushed it open and went in, expecting a puff of warm air to greet him, but found only a dark cold entryway. It was even colder than the house tended to be when Ryou wasn't home.
"Ryou? Are you home?" Joey called, worried. Ryou always locked up the house when he wasn't home, afraid of what might happen if he wasn't careful. He had to be home if the door was unlocked. Joey tried to turn on the lights in order to aid his search, but found that flipping the lightswitch did nothing at all.
"Ryou?" he called again, checking the kitchen and the living room before going to Ryou's room, where he found a mountain of blankets humped over a human-sized bulk. "Ryou, can you hear me?" he called, his voice breaking as he rubbed his hands together for warmth. Finally, he reached down and carefully peeled the blankets back until he finally spotted a lock of fluffy white hair poking out from underneath a sweatshirt hood. "Ryou, wake up," Joey called, his eyes stinging with tears. He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled Ryou into his arms, starting to cry into Ryou's hair as he pleaded for him to wake up.
"Please, Ryou, let me fix this. I love you, I really do." He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve, starting to feel hopeful as Ryou began to stir in his embrace. "Are you okay?" he asked urgently as those big doe eyes fluttered open. "It's freezing in here, Ryou," he scolded, still sniffling. "You shouldn't be sleeping in the cold like this. It's dangerous."
"Joey?" Ryou looked confused. "Why are you here?"
"I wanted to make things right, but we can do that later. I'm going to take you home with me, okay?" Joey started to extract Ryou out from his little cave, making the smaller male gasp at the blast of colder air.
"No, I'm fine," he tried to protest, but Joey wasn't having any of it. Joey pressed his lips to Ryou's cheek suddenly, making Ryou freeze.
"You're as cold as ice." Joey gave Ryou a stern look that made the stubborn orphan wither. "You're coming home with me." He slipped his arms around Ryou's chest from behind and tugged him out into the open and off the bed, setting him down on his feet as he knocked the shoebox off the bed, scattering its contents on the floor. "I'm sorry, let me help," he began, crouching down to gather the items, but Ryou quickly joined him and tried to push his hands away.
"No, it's okay, I can get it," Ryou said quickly, trying to take one of his suicide notes out of Joey's hand, but it was too late. Joey had already glimpsed the words and held the note out of reach, standing up again as he started to read it, a storm gathering in his expression.
"What is this?" he asked, his voice low and tense as he continued to read. "Ryou, what is this?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Ryou choked out, suddenly feeling deeply ashamed of himself as he crouched on the floor, quietly putting the other items back into the shoebox as he kept his head down, not wanting to see how Joey reacted to his suicidal letter from ten months ago. Valentine's Day. It was the last one he'd written. After Joey, there hadn't been anymore. He sat there for a moment, holding the old shoebox in both hands as he held his breath and stared at the floor, waiting for Joey's reaction. He was surprised when Joey dropped to the floor and threw his arms around Ryou, starting to cry.
"I would miss you, Ryou," he whispered, addressing the words in Ryou's letter. "I love you. I don't know what I'd do without you. Please, please don't ever kill yourself, okay? Promise me you never will."
"I-I can't," Ryou choked out, somewhat stunned, but Joey squeezed him more tightly.
"Promise me," Joey repeated, needing to hear those words before he was willing to let go of his boyfriend.
"I promise," Ryou whispered at last, and Joey kissed his other cheek.
"Good, because I need you." He held Ryou's white cheeks with both of his hands, the soft leather of his driving gloves tender against the chapped skin. "I need you, Ryou, like I need food and sleep and oxygen. I love you, Ryou. What you saw with Mai… it's not what you thought. She came onto me. She kissed me, and I tried to push her away, but she was stronger than I thought. If I hurt her, she could have accused me of attacking her, and I couldn't let that happen."
What he didn't tell Ryou was that Mai had corner him in the stairwell and accused him of being gay. What he didn't tell Ryou was that Mai had said if Joey wasn't gay, then he'd kiss her. It was true that Mai had kissed Joey, but he'd played along to keep her from knowing the truth, since it was so important to Ryou that their relationships remain a secret. What he didn't tell Ryou was that he planned on coming out anyways, because he was so sick of the secrecy and the hiding.
"You have to believe me, Ryou." The desperate, sad-puppy look in Joey's face was enough to bring Ryou to tears and nod vigorously.
"I believe you, Joey," he whispered, and the two lovers embraced again. "I believe you, and I'm so sorry that I didn't trust you. I didn't mean what I said, earlier. I do trust you more than my dad, I do, Joey…" He sobbed into Joey's shoulder, and Joey rubbed his back comfortingly, hushing him softly to make him calm down.
"It's okay, Ryou, I know you didn't mean it." The blond kissed the Brit's forehead as he held him, letting him cry against him for a few minutes. "Ryou, you're shaking," he murmured pityingly. "Let me take you out to my car, okay? I'll pack a bag for you and you'll spend the night at my place, alright?"
"I-I can't do that," Ryou resisted, even as his teeth started chattering.
"Nonsense. It's below freezing outside and your power's out. I'm not letting you stay here." Joey wiped his own eyes again and stood up, picking up the large fuzzy blanket that he knew was Ryou's favorite. He wrapped Ryou up in it, cocooning his lover in the warmth and making sure that the blanket wasn't trailing on the floor before he carried Ryou in his arms, bridal-style, out to his car and sat him in the passenger seat. He kissed Ryou on his pale lips and murmured, "I'll be right back, okay?"
"O-Okay," Ryou murmured, smiling tentatively as color began to return to his white cheeks from the heaters blasting inside the old car.
Joey closed the car door and jogged back to the house. He grabbed a duffel bag from the hall closet and went to Ryou's room, grabbing his outerwear from the floor and some clothes from his dresser before grabbing a few necessary toiletries from the bathroom and zipping the bag shut. He grabbed Ryou's boots then headed for the door, grabbing Ryou's backpack as an afterthought before going back out to his car and loading the items into his backseat. He slid into the driver's seat and buckled up, looking over at Ryou, who was starting to look like a cannoli with his white hair poking out the top of his beige, furry cocoon. He smiled gently as the shy Brit smiled tentatively back. Joey leaned over and kissed Ryou tenderly, lingering for several moments as he tried to assure Ryou that he was going to be okay.
Author Notes: Now I want to see fan-art of Ryou as a cannoli... Yummy. ^-^